, was a British-built ironclad corvette of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). She was purchased on behalf of a Japanese daimyo or clan lord in 1870 who donated the ship to the fledgling IJN shortly after receiving the ship. As the largest ship in the IJN Ryūjō was frequently visited by the Emperor Meiji and was used to escort a diplomatic mission to Imperial China. She played minor roles in suppressing several of the rebellions that plagued Japan in the 1870s. The ship ran aground in 1877 and was not refloated for almost six months. Ryūjō became a training ship after repairs were completed in 1880 and made several long training cruises throughout the Pacific Basin during the 1880s. Her second cruise in 1882–1883 was interrupted when nearly half the crew developed beriberi. A Japanese naval physician had developed a theory that the disease was caused by a dietary deficiency and was able to persuade the government to repeat the voyage with a different ship using a more nutritious diet. The only cases of beriberi that developed on that cruise were by sailors who did not eat the new diet, confirming the theory. Ryūjō was converted into a stationary training ship when her propulsion machinery was removed in 1887–1888 and was assigned to the naval gunnery school in 1890. She remained in that role through 1906 even after the ship was decommissioned in 1893. Ryūjō was sold for scrap in 1908. Background and description A wooden-hulled ironclad corvette was ordered by a British merchant for the private navy of the fief of Kumamoto. Known by the builder as Jho Sho Maru, she was long between perpendiculars with a beam of and a draught of at deep load. Using the Moorsom System in use at the time of her construction for estimating cargo space, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 992 tons if the propulsion machinery spaces is excluded. The corvette displaced and was fitted with a naval ram at her bow. Her crew numbered 275 in October 1873. Ryūjō was fitted with a pair of horizontal direct-acting steam engines that drove a single propeller shaft using steam that was provided by four rectangular boilers at a working pressure of . The engines were rated at a total of 280 nominal horsepower () and gave the ship a speed of . She carried a maximum of of coal, but